“Welcome to Galaswinda”: ​​this is what the former “Bronzés” holiday club has become in Ivory Coast

“Welcome to Galaswinda, Darla dirladada. There is sun and girls, Darla dirladada…”. Music that has become cult, a beach where Jean-Claude Dusse made us laugh for the first time. It was 46 years ago already. The Splendid troupe was filming “Les Bronzés” in Assouindé, a small village 80 km from Abidjan in Ivory Coast. But fans can take out their tissues, because today, everything has disappeared, or almost everything.

Chichio is a child of the village and a former GO of Club Med, the one where the actors and film crews had set up their suitcases. “The actors, they sat at the bar, they drank, they talked. They went to the restaurant. That’s where they were at the theater,” he shows in the TF1 news report visible at the top of this article. And immediately, we re-visualize the cult scenes at the swimming pool, at the bar, in the performance hall. All returned to the state of good memories, because the vacation club is now abandoned. A pile of ruins caused in particular by climate change.

The sea has moved inexorably, cruelly, closer, due to erosion and rising waters.

David de Araujo

“Since filming, the sea has moved inexorably, cruelly, closer, due to erosion and rising water levels. Imagine, this beach has been reduced by almost 300 meters since 1978”explains TF1 journalist David de Araujo. The sea has eaten up so much land that it has shattered the life of the village. The life of veterans who worked in hotels like Dadier. He remembers that time like it was yesterday. “Club Méditerranée, I will never forget this name, because it is a great memory”, he said. He was a lifeguard at the time of filming. “I saw these Europeans getting dressed, putting on makeup to go shoot the film. We only had a few seconds, you hide, you look and then you leave”he remembers. A golden age of which only the shells of buildings remain. As you can see in the photo below, this is what the restaurant has become.

“Build dikes”

“The waves that were coming started to break the tables and everything. So it stayed like that”details Dadier. At the time, nearly 100,000 tourists flocked from all over the world each year. Vacationers, ministers and showbiz stars kept the village’s businesses thriving. “It changed a lot because they all deserted, because nothing was working. Tourism, practically, had disappeared”says a resident.

Beyond the village, the entire coast is threatened. The equivalent of 45 million euros have already been spent to help Grand-Lahou, a town completely devoured by water. And according to the government, entire regions will be submerged within 40 years if nothing is done. “It is important for us to make investments that allow us to build dikes, to build breakwaters,” admits Siandou Fofana, the minister of tourism and leisure.

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The former Club Med was bought by the main Ivorian construction company. It plans to build high-end accommodation for long stays. Enough to perhaps revitalize the local economy. But for the moment, no opening date has been announced.